


Close and Quiet

by Mireille



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Ficathon, Mistletoe Magic, Parent/Child Incest, Pre-Order of the Phoenix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-12-24
Updated: 2002-12-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 05:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13780365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Written by request for the 2002 Mistletoe Magic challenge. WARNING: Disturbing content that should be obvious from the pairing.





	Close and Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, back out now. I only wrote this because it was my ficathon assignment and I couldn't get out of it (I had the choice between this and cannibalistic necrophilia. There was no winner here). I still low-key hate the person who requested it, 16 years later. I probably shouldn't have archived this, and let it die unless someone searched Wayback for it, but... the completist in me won't let myself. (LOOK, BILL/CHARLIE IS MY OTP AND THIS STILL BOTHERS ME IN SO MANY WAYS ON SO MANY LEVELS)  
> .

When her children were younger, from time to time one of them would accuse her of loving one of the others more, after some imagined unfairness, and Molly would put her hands on her hips, and shake her head, and tell them that she loved all of her children equally.  They'd grumble, of course, but in general, they believed her.

Even though she was lying. 

She loved six of them equally, but when they accused her of playing favorites, it was usually the seventh one they mentioned, and it was then that she had to bite her tongue and lie. 

She couldn't help but love him more.  He was the only one of them who was  _hers_.  Bill and Charlie had always belonged only to themselves; in a way, that was good, particularly during the war, when Hogwarts had stayed open over the summer and it hadn't been safe to come home, but it meant that she looked at them without the same feeling of connection.  She loved them with all her heart, but they weren't  _hers_. 

The twins and Ron took after Arthur--Ron physically, but all three of them in personality; they were the ones who flew the wretched car to Surrey and attracted trouble like the garden drew gnomes.  And she loved them for it, for how she could see Arthur in them, but they weren't  _hers_.

And Ginny--she'd thought, when Ginny was younger, that she, as the only girl, might feel some sort of kinship to her mother; but Ginny had rather tag along after the boys than stay with Molly.  And then Ginny had gone off to school, and she'd come home paler, and quieter, and more inclined to stay by herself; Molly wasn't sure--and never wanted to be sure--who Ginny belonged to, now, but it certainly wasn't her mother.

Which left Percy.  Percy, who'd been young enough during the war to be home, with Molly, and old enough to know to be frightened.  Who'd grown up nervous because of it, who'd learned to stay close, and quiet; to know that books were safer than toys because they made less sound, that it was his job to keep the younger ones safe.  It had set him apart from the rest of them, the responsibility she'd been forced to give him, and so, when the twins, and Ron, and Ginny pulled away from him, complaining that he wasn't any fun (and when Bill and Charlie teased him for being more mature than they were), she was always there, ready to comfort.  And so, in the summers and at Christmas, Percy would sit next to her, close and quiet, and read while she knitted another jumper, or went over the accounts again to see how to make fifteen Sickles last until Arthur's next pay-day. He was the only one of them who would keep her company, and if she hadn't loved him best already, she would have, for that.

The summer that he was sixteen, he spent most of his time in his room, and the twins mocked him for it.  She found him, one day, looking out the window, obviously waiting for something.  An owl, most likely, as Hermes had been kept busy since Percy had stepped off the train.  Molly and Arthur had smiled to each other, knowingly, remembering the summers that Bill and Charlie had spent waiting for letters from some girl they'd left behind at King's Cross.  

But there'd been no letter today, and so Percy stood staring out of his bedroom window, waiting.  She came up to stand behind him, putting her hand comfortingly on his arm, and he turned, silently, to rest his head on her shoulder, the way he'd done when he was small, and wanted to be comforted without interrupting whatever Molly was doing. 

She didn't ask questions, only put her arms around him, because she didn't want to know.  Didn't want to think about a girl taking him away, taking away the only one of her children who truly  _belonged_  to her.  He was hers, and he was always going to  _be_  hers, and she supposed that was what she was thinking when she led him over to the bed, just to sit and be comforted.

Just to remind him, and to prove to this girl, whoever she might be, that Percy was  _hers_ , and no one else's.

Afterward, he lay with his head on her shoulder, close and quiet in the twilight, and she supposed that she'd lost all ability to claim that she didn't play favorites.


End file.
